INTERNATIONAL VISITOR ARRIVALS – 2016 & 2017

British Columbia’s
tourism industry had an exceptional year in 2016, with a total of
5,532,065 overnight international visitor arrivals to the province,
including 3,620,975 visitors from the US, 1,200,481 from Asia Pacific, and
535,238 visitors from Europe. International visitor arrivals were up 12.3%
over 2015. This means an additional 605,918 visitors from international
markets arrived in BC in 2016 over the previous year. BC saw
increases from key markets, such as Mexico (up 3.4%); Australia (21.1%);
China (18.2%); United Kingdom (17.3%) & India (9.9%).

The strong growth in
the tourism sector can be linked to a number of factors, including the
marketing efforts of Destination BC and our industry partners, increased
number of direct flights, and the easing of visa restrictions.The
beginning of 2017 showed an increase of 9.9% in overnight entries to
Canada and 9.2% to BC for January 2017. BC had an impressive increase of
33.4% in entries from Asia/Pacific countries. [Courtesy
Destination BC]